“Much Ado About Nothing”
Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, Spencer Treat Clark, Riki Lindhome, Ashley Johnson
Comedy/Drama/Romance
107 Mins 
PG-13

Every time any sane person starts watching a Shakespeare adaptation, there’s that initial shock of the compacted and complex language – a bucket of cold water that reminds you that you can’t just sit back and coast – and the same is the case with Joss Whedon‘s Much Ado About Nothing.

Rather than your casual lethargic movie-going experience, you are forced to follow along as closely as possible if you want to gleam all the comic zingers from the work of the great Bard. However sink-or-swim Shakespeare’s diction may be, Whedon aims to make the experience as user-friendly as possible and charges through the weighty task of adapting such a prolific poet with a bubbly sense of life and purpose. It’s in this love of craft on all fronts that makes this modern envisioning work as well as it does.

All the performers’ love for Shakespeare and his hefty diction is clearly evident as Whedon and company tap into the timeless spirit of the mystery of love. They seem to capture a fleeting grasp of it. The question that remains when the lights go up is whether it’s just a good Shakespeare movie or just a good movie regardless of qualification and unfortunately I think it is more the former than the latter.

When you find out that this was filmed in a mere 12 days in Whedon’s backyard, it’s not really a surprise. If anything, it puts the film in context. While it is impressive to have jammed the entire enterprise together that quickly, it is entirely obvious that this was not a project of fiercely deliberate preparation. There are blatant edit quirks and none of the camera work is necessarily fancy or impressive. Likewise, the set is what it is: a house. But all of this stripping down works as Whedon’s film thrives on relationships and proses rather than production value.

Nathan Fillion (Firefly) is a standout in this talented cast and although he has limited screen time, he milks his dumbed-down police captain for all the zingers he can get. Likewise, Amy Acker (Cabin in the Woods) and Alexis Denisof (The Avengers) as Beatrice and Benedick respectively, have nice chemistry as they shuffle between playful admonishment and loving adoration on the turn of a dime.

Clark Gregg (The Avengers) and Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods) help fill out the ensemble and both prove their aptitude to chew the scenery as the many relations boil over around them. Although nearly all of their characters are easily influenced one way or another, their performers commit to the oblivious nature of their fickle attitudes with panache.

In Much Ado About Nothing, love is a game of scheming and manipulation. Dissimilarly, Whedon’s interpretation reveals his gambit for exactly what it is: a one-and-done modernized adaptation proud to bear its fuzzy flaws. For what it’s worth, Whedon has produced a charming rendition that is told with eloquence and crafted with care that will be sure to delight those willing to spend an hour catching up with the late, great Shakespeare.

B-

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“The Kings of Summer”
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Starring Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Marc Evan Jackson, Craig Cackowski and Erin Moriarty
Comedy
93 Mins
R

Jordan Vogt-Roberts has cast his net into a summer overflowing with coming-of-age stories with The Kings of Summer, a film just strange and fantastical enough to leave a little bit of a mark. A lively mish-mash of novel spirit and borrowed plotting, Vogt-Roberts never quite gets a grasp on whether he wanted this to be more Huckleberry Finn or Y Tu Mama Tambien. It’s got a little bit of both but doesn’t quite indulge in the alluringly mystical environment as much as it should have.

Shambling through  spazzed-out and bone-dry comic tilts, The Kings of Summer packs enough laughs to overcome its eventual descent into melodrama where too much stock plot spoils the most intriguing aspects of the feature: three teenage boys trying to live in the wild. 

Joe is our entrance to the film. Played by all-American Nick Robinson, Joe is almost too good looking for his pitiable social standing but we let it slide. Gabriel Basso (Super 8) plays Patrick, Joe’s best friend, social circle equal and confidant. Tired of their overbearing parents and fed-up with their low standing in the social circuit, Joe and Patrick decide to run away from the tedium of their high school lives for a summer to build their own escapist woodland shanty.

Vagrancy has never looked this…well… cool. Joe, Patrick and where-did-he-come-from-Biaggio commit to abandoning familiarity to live off the land and assemble a kick-ass house in the midst of seemingly enchanted woods.

Who is this Biaggio character, you ask? He’s a short, funny looking thing, filled in by a left-field performance from Moises Arias, playing off a Napoleon Dynamite-level of awkward quirk. Although he’s popping off some great one-liners left and right, his character makes no sense in the context of these relationships as he literally shows up out of the blue for little more than comic relief. Even with a hilarious presence, these unaccounted for logic gaps dig head-scratching divots into the natural narrative arc and devalue the overall impact.

On the other side of the spectrum, Nick Offerman is no fool’s gold. He’s the real thing. Screenwriter Chris Galletta‘s words flow from Offerman’s mouth like oily mead: bludgeoning yet perfect. Either Galletta has Offerman’s idiosyncratic, manly-man, sardonic wit down flat or Vogt-Roberts let Offerman channel his inner Ron Swanson and riff off that. Regardless, his character works tremendously and his relationship with his son is hardhearted but emotionally nuanced. In Offerman, the comedy and drama shines.

Lacking the emotional depth of the Offerman-and-son relationship but ratcheting up a different breed of comedy, Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson offer striking satire on the WASP family structure. However innocent their voyeurism is, they are a pair of parents so hands-on that they can’t help themselves but to comment on every single detail of their son Patrick’s life down to his wardrobe. It’s no wonder that he runs away.

Out in the woods, things seem promising but a late second act shift towards a more schmaltzy and familiar path tilt the balance board into bathos. When Patrick and Joe’s friendship is tested over a girl, there’s a palpable collective sigh from the viewership -so I guess this is happening. This wringing of the cultural wash pool for teenage milestones doesn’t destroy the feature but it robs it of its more original platform.

Remaining after the fall is the arresting scenery; even in the whirl of entropy these forested shots are tinted with childhood magic. As an audience, we’re still entranced by the Eden-like qualities of the setting despite the lost sparkle in the character’s relationship-drunken eyes. In becoming “men,” they’ve lost the worth of this place.

Failing to see the forest for the trees, Vogt-Roberts had shoehorned a tired bros-over-hoes message into an otherwise trailblazing narrative. Following a first act that’s solid gold, the film abandons offbeat wit for caged wisdom as conventional as it is predictable. Keeping the esoteric alive in characters like Biaggio and Offerman’s Frank does keep our interest but cements the facts that characters and events in this world are weird and serendipitous for the sake of being weird and serendipitous.

When all is said and done, The Kings of Summer is gratifying escapism with solid laughs, choked out by its willingness to engage in the customary.

C+

“The East”
Directed by Zal Batmanglij
Starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, Toby Kebbell, Shiloh Fernandez, Aldis Hodge, Patricia Clarkson
Thriller, Drama, Mystery
116 Mins
R

The East is neither the first movie about an undercover mole infiltrating an enemy organization, learning the universal worth of their dogma and falling for their leader nor will it be the last. Nonetheless, it’s commendable for its throbbing sense of stakes even in light of the searing self-righteous aplomb beating you over the head at every turn.

However young and fragile she may seem, Sarah (Brit Marling) is a daring security firm agent intent on going deep-cover with an eco-terrorist organization known only as The East whose retaliatory exploits against corporate CEOs have been heavily featured in the media. Cloaked in ragged hipster gear, strapped into Birkenstocks but still smelling of soap, Sarah tries to earn credibility within the rungs of the alternative ragamuffins she’s taken up camp with.

Eventually, she winds up playing wingman to a rare East member and, after slashing herself with a can of coke, is taken to The East’s headquarters to witness their unconventional ways and seemingly violent credo. She immediately forms a bond with their passive but firm leader Benji, played by Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood). To the members of The East, the acts they commit are not terrorism so much as a lesson. They live by the tenants of Hammurabi’s Code: an eye for an eye.

Those who dump oil into the ocean will have oil dumped into their homes. Those who intentionally distribute prescription drugs with devastating side effects will be force-fed those same drugs. Those who operate plants that knowingly poison the local water supply will be forced to bathe in that water. It’s a harsh comeuppance but the organization sees it as a necessary evil to get the world back on track. Toby Kebbell stands out from amongst the cast and acts as the emotional fulcrum, particularly when he recounts the story of his sister’s passing at the hands of an irresponsible pharmaceutical corporation. In time, Sarah begins to see the world through their eyes and is torn between the responsibilities of her past life and her newfound kinship with The East.

As individual elements, the characters work great but there’s a flatness between the two leads that you can’t quite put your finger on. Skarsgård is captivating and Marling manages to juggle the duality of her character with ease but their chemistry feels a little forced. Rather than an organic connection, this supposedly unexpected relationship was exactly the opposite. It felt like a fore-drawn conclusion created within a script rather than a natural character progression.

Somewhere between the center and the outskirts of the story is Ellen Page (Inception, Juno) whose role was an undeniable letdown. Her character plays the nonsensical narrative scapegoat with her alliances and motivations shifting on a dime. Chop her into two and she wouldn’t be this lumped together, confused amalgamation.

However nonchalantly you interpret the corporate threat to our world lingering within the film, the brazen political positioning is sure to make you feel something, forcing you to shimmy to one side or the other depending on the presumptions you enter the theater with and your willingness to engage with the material presented.

As such, The East is an interactive experience demanding viewers to take a stance and wrestle with it throughout. But buried in all this palpable, self-serious introspection, there is a fun spy thriller that breathes life, stakes and momentum into the piece allowing it to be more than just a downtrodden and pedantic procedural.

The jury is out as to whether this thinly masked political subterfuge will be effective as catalyzing filmmaking but you have to respect Zal Batmanglij for trying. Too often, movies don’t bother with a message or their agenda is too broadly painted to be definitively interpretable and thus meaningful. Batmanglij though broadcasts his eco-friendly stance here even more so than James Cameron with Avatar. Lobbing stink bombs at corporations may seem like a fruitless undertaking, especially under the auspices of Fox Searchlight, but at least Batmanglij is taking a step in the right direction.

As a thriller, The East has an extraordinary first and second act but is jarringly interrupted and the hard-earned edge-of-your-seat involvement spills over like a glass of milk. As a lesson in morality and escalation, the lines seem a little more blurred. This is clearly wishful thinking. As the film builds to climaxes of shifty moral ambiguities, its self-serious nature takes precedence over the sheer uninhibited fun set lose in the thriller components and limits it from reaching heights within its grasp.